Mike: I hope you all had a fine holiday season. The layoff announcements should begin anew as companies realize that the holiday shopping season wasn’t as good as they had hoped. Also, the bad PR with laying off at the holidays past and companies no longer feel that pressure.

One of the big news stories this month will be Microsoft’s layoff intentions and their first quarter earnings. Although hundreds of contractors have not been renewed, it’s the potential layoffs of full-time employees that will draw the most attention. If earnings are better than expected, the layoffs will likely be minimal, but if earnings are worse, they may be forced to layoff in order to satisfy their shareholders. We should know the results in a couple weeks and in the meantime I’ll keep you informed of the latest relevant news stories.

Mike: As a reminder, I will be glad to post any layoff news or rumors that you may know about. You can leave the stories in the comments section or feel free to email me at layofflist@gmail.com. I appreciate any help you can offer with keeping the content of this site timely, informative and up-to-date.

The following article shows the government tracks the bailout money – they don’t. They will probably save a great deal of accounting expenses related to the tracking of $700 billion by merely not tracking it. Can you imagine telling a bank that you want money to bail out your business, but you won’t keep track of where the money is going because it’s too difficult? You would be laughed out of the office and told not to return until you learned how to track or account for the money you want from the bank. But our illustrious government representatives just dole out billions without any tracking mechanism in place and they don’t even require the receivers of those billions to account for the use of those funds. Congress was warned repeatedly that there needed to be proper accounting for the release of those bailout funds, but Paulsen and crew didn’t want to burden the nearly bankrupt institutions with those accounting headaches. We as taxpayers are paying for anything and everything that these institutions want, be that private jets, overseas executive retreats, executive bonuses, or golden parachutes.

I mention this because a portion of this untrackable money could have been used for more worthwhile causes, such as job creation and small business loans. Instead the money is given to corrupt, poorly managed, foolhardy lenders that drove their companies into the ground.

The information was contained in a document, released Wednesday, of a Dec. 10 meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Board. The panel, headed by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, includes Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Securities and Exchange Commission chief Christopher Cox.

While offering no details, the document also mentioned that officials at that meeting discussed “potential methods” of using the bailout program to help curb home foreclosures and ease problems in the housing market.

More broadly, the officials discussed “the difficulty of isolating the effects” of the bailout program “given the variety of policy actions taken by the U.S. government to support financial stability and promote economic growth.”

The officials also noted the “difficulties associated with monitoring the use of specific funds” provided to individual financial institutions, according to the document.

Mike: ProPublica– has an interesting graph showing the size of various government bailouts over the past 40 years starting with Penn Central in 1970 and continuing till today’s Citigroup bailout. It’s not surprising, but it’s nonetheless disturbing to see that the taxpayers biggest bailouts have been sent to the financial sector with little hope of a full return on bailout investment: ProPublica: bailout aftermaths.

A Microsoft source tells (CNBC) that the speculation is “grossly exaggerated,” but added that “any company not paying careful attention to headcount in a climate like this is nuts” ….

… A source did tell CNBC’s Jim Goldman that Microsoft considered a more aggressive strategy, including a significant layoff. Those plans may still be on the table, this source says, but it appears the company will instead rein in costs in other ways.

So what have contractors told the Seattle P-I?

One contractor said that more contract projects than usual are not being renewed and that contract budgets were “being strictly adhered to, which was more of a joke before this recession.”

* It is disheartening to know that since the software giant Microsoft is considering a plan for substantial redundancies to combat the economic downturn, the company’s 3,000 employees in the UK face an uncertain 2009.

It has been learnt that at least 10 per cent and possibly as much as 17 per cent of its global workforce could be cut in what would be the first mass lay-offs in the company’s 32-year history. Worldwide, nearly 15,000 jobs could be under threat.

* An independent Web site for IBM employees has been buzzing with rumors that the company will make significant layoffs this month.

One message states that IBM will announce 16,000 layoffs on Jan. 23, affecting workers worldwide. Similar predictions are made in other recent posts on the site, which is run by the Alliance@IBM/Communications Workers of America Local 1701, a union that is trying to organize IBM workers.

Goldman Sachs analyst Sarah Friar this morning weighed in on the two biggest rumors swirling around Microsoft recently: Will there be a Zune phone announcement at the Consumer Electronics Show? And will the company make substantial cuts in its workforce?

* Reporting from Mesquite, Nev. — Two decades ago, real estate mogul Randy Black turned this blip on the Arizona border into a boomtown when he opened the first of four casinos. Nearly 1 million visitors a year followed, and hotels, restaurants and stucco homes seemed to sprout from sand.

“It seemed to be one of those things that ‘Geez, it’s just going great. It’s never going to end,’ ” said Victor Kotalion, who left Las Vegas in 1990 for this arid patch off Interstate 15.

Locals and travelers passing through have long kept Mesquite’s casinos afloat. But like the spent mines that have busted many Western towns, Mesquite’s source of wealth ran out. As the economy soured, tourists hoarded their cash, and the town’s gross gambling revenue plummeted 11%. Visitor volume fell 7.4% last year; the average daily room rate fell 35.4%.

Last month, Black laid off 347 workers at the Oasis and shuttered much of the casino. Kotalion, a 60-year-old dealer and floor supervisor, was one of the ones let go.

“As you get older, what do you do?” Kotalion said. “There aren’t a lot of options here . . . not for me. Actually, not for anybody that’s in the gaming industry.”

* People cut back on big-ticket items like vacations and cars when the economy sours, but is a $7,000 facelift or a $4,000 nose job recession-proof?

In tough economic times, and with no health insurance for cosmetic surgery, many are postponing or canceling their plans.

The impact has been so severe in some areas that plastic surgeons are laying off employees or cutting back on their hours as a result, said Dr. Felmont Eaves III, vice president of the American Society for Aesthic Plastic Surgery.

The number of cosmetic procedures — surgical and non-surgical, such as Botox injections — ballooned from about 2.1 million in 1997 to 11.7 million in 2007 after an all-time the high of 11.8 million in 2004, according to the society.

* What is meant to be a warning system for employees and communities about impending layoffs may be too full of holes to get the job done.

Of the nearly 2,000 jobs shed in Butler County in 2008, only about 918 were reported to the state through the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

The WARN Act is mean to give communities time to plan for the needs of displaced workers and to help those employees find training. Companies are required to give 60 days notice to workers and governments alike, or otherwise pay 60 days of wages to affected employees.

However, several holes in the legislation allow some cuts to slip through.

For instance, according to the act, companies with fewer than 100 employees are not required to report.

In addition, layoffs totaling more than 50 employees in one location are required to report. But, this means that if one company is cutting 20 people at three locations, it is not required to report to WARN.

Also, if businesses intend to bring back workers within six months, it does not have to file with WARN.

* WARREN – City Council Deputy Clerk Brenda Smith laughed and said she didn’t think she would spend 2009 living in a cardboard box, but the local job opportunities in her line of work are troubling her.

There aren’t any.

“What can I do? There’s no sense crying and screaming about it. What good would that do?” Smith said Tuesday, the second-to-last-day of work before her layoff.

Smith is one of 40 city employees laid off Thursday save for one employee in the tax department, who will be laid off in May. City administration announced the layoffs in November, citing troubles in the economy that made it increasingly difficult to have a balanced budget.

* A troubled youth mental health center in Riverview has laid off more than a third of its staff now that the state has removed many of the children in its care.

Tampa Bay Academy let go 125 workers in its residential treatment center last week, even as it prepared a final effort to stop a state agency from seizing its license to provide around-the-clock mental health care to children.

* The Stockton Police Department has laid off four officers-in-training due to continuing budget issues. It’s the first time the department has ever laid off anyone in recent memory, according to officials.

John Stallard, shop chairman for United Auto Workers Local 888, said the facility has been closed since Dec. 19 for an annual break. Workers were supposed to return to their jobs Jan. 5, but a letter from the company said the Dayton operation is being closed, Stallard said.

* (Orange) County layoffs are expected to begin Monday in the Social Services Agency, where budget planners hope to scrape $30 million from the department that serves the region’s poor.

While plans are still being finalized, the Watchdog has obtained some preliminary numbers on the impending layoffs. They’re not pretty. Of the 4,218 Social Services employees, 193 vacant positions will be eliminated. Another 110 probationary employees and 100 permanent workers will be pink slipped as well, effective Jan. 19.

The remaining employees may be forced to take off two weeks sans pay to balance the books.

The jobs that will be hit the hardest are the ones that work directly with the disadvantaged. Fifty social workers…gone; 68 eligibility experts (the people who decide who qualifies for government assistance)…gone. Thirty-eight supervisors…gone.

* Financially troubled Albemarle Mental Health Center announced the closing of its 23-hour crisis unit at Albemarle Hospital Friday afternoon and issued two weeks’ notice to some 80 employees.

The changes come as the organization shifts mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse services to about 3,000 clients in the 10-county service area from the center’s own staff to private service providers. The elimination of such “direct services” is a state-mandated feature of the mental health reform that has privatized mental health services in the state.

* Heckethorn Manufacturing Co., a division of BHM Technologies, announced recently that it would be laying-off approximately 100 of its employees and adjusting its work schedule.

The layoffs are due to a sluggish automotive industry, as well as the shape of the national economy. “If they are not building vehicles, they don’t need our parts,” said President and CEO of Heckethorn Manufacturing Co. Jon Walter. “The whole economy is in bad shape and people are not making big purchases.”

* Interlake Material Handling Solutions laid off about 50 employees on Wednesday from its Sumter plant at 1925 Corporate Way.

The layoffs, which plant manager Victor Jones said were company-wide, were done across the board and included all sectors of their operations.

“Our volume is down 50 percent,” Jones said. “Our business is based on expansions and we’re hurt when companies aren’t building and expanding. The whole economy has cut back on capital investments, and we’re closely tied to that.”

* SOUTH HILL — A local veneering company has laid off 20 employees and after a two-week plant shut down will be back in production Monday, officials said.

International Veneer Company Inc. (IVC) is feeling the effects of the downturn in the economy. A decline in the new housing market across the nation has caused the 25-year-old manufacturing facility to lay off 20 employees in December, officials said.

* Roadway Express, which operates two truck terminals in Toledo, filed notice that it intends to lay off 160 employees at its facility at 6180 Hagman Rd.

The company, in a required filing under the Ohio Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, said the layoffs will start on March 1 and that some of the affected employees are represented by Teamsters Local 20. Others are nonunion clerical staff and management.

* GRANITE CITY — A metro-east steel foundry has notified Madison County officials that it will cut 363 jobs by the middle of next month.

Matt Jones, assistant director of the Madison County Employment & Training Department, said Chicago-based Amsted Rail, originally known as American Steel Foundries, filed a notice last month with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

The notice indicated that the steel foundry will be laying off the workers by Feb. 16.

* ELYRIA —Midway Mall could be closing its doors as five stores are set to close by next month, according to mall employees. A Macy’s employee said the Cleveland Clinic is interested in buying the mall if and when it closes.

Dairy Queen will close on Jan. 25 and New York & Company, formerly Lerner New York, will close at the beginning of next month. Hallmark andPac Sun will also be closing this month. The name of the fifth store has not yet been disclosed.

“I think it’s sad because now the mall is going to go,” said Lisa Todaro, an assistant manager at one of the stores in the mall. “I go to school full time so I won’t be able to get hired in management anywhere else. No one else will hire you in as a manager if you’re in school, but my job did.”

* Four East Tennessee companies have laid off or plan to lay off a total of 179 workers, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development said Monday. Barna Log Homes LLC to cut 79 jobs, Safety Systems laid off 45 workers, Bomanite Corp. is eliminating 18 jobs, Kia of Morristown has cut 37 jobs.

In its annual report submitted to the Singapore Exchange on Wednesday, Creative Techologies lists it had 3,100 full-time employees at the end of June 2008.

This is a 47 percent drop in the size of its workforce year-on-year, as the company employed 5,800 in 2007. More worryingly, we don’t know what happened after June 2008, i.e., after the global financial crisis reached its peak.

* Syracuse, NY–Citing the economy and a record decline in retail sales, WYNIT Inc. Chief Operating Officer, Pete Richichi today said the company will cut 60 jobs, the majority coming from its North Syracuse headquarters.

According to a news release, the layoffs were based on seniority. The company hopes to call these employees back to work in 90 days. If they’re not called back, those laid off will receive a severance package.

Mike: If this casino is so “popular” why are they closing four days a week and laying off employees? MSM strikes again.

* JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians says it will operate its Golden Moon Hotel and Casino only three days a week and is eliminating 570 non-tribal staff positions as part of a massive restructuring to save money.

* Major developments in the financial management of General Synod took place in the fall and winter with the resignation, effective Dec. 31, of treasurer Peter Blachford, and the layoffs Nov. 25 of seven staff at the national office in Toronto.

* MIDDLE AMANA – More than 200 layoffs took effect Monday at the Whirlpool refrigeration plant in Middle Amana. Back in December, employees were informed the company was seeking 150 voluntary layoffs by January 5.

* SAN DIEGO, Jan. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — ADVENTRX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE Alternext US: ANX) announced today that it has implemented a further reduction-in-force in an effort to extend its remaining cash and to prepare itself for a strategic transaction. This follows a reduction implemented in October 2008. In all, the Company’s workforce has declined by approximately 55% since the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2008. Following the current reduction and other planned departures, the Company will have fourteen employees. In addition, the Company has substantially reduced or delayed spending on third-party consulting and vendor services, including contract manufacturing.

* Jan 5 (Reuters) – Software company DealerTrack Holdings Inc (TRAK.O) said it would reduce its workforce by about 8 percent and incur a restructuring charge, adding that its chief financial officer will be leaving the company. The provider of software for the U.S. automotive retail industry plans to cut about 90 jobs as a continued decline in U.S. car sales and the number of vehicles financed weighs.

* Cigna Corp., the Philadelphia-based insurance company, will eliminate 1,100 positions, or 4 percent of its workforce. Although its headquarters are in Center City, Cigna employs a large workforce in Connecticut.

Mike: The story below is a indication of how the world is contracting and not purchasing as much Chinese manufactured goods. As I’ve mentioned previously, the Chinese system doesn’t have many jobless benefits or social programs in place for recessionary times, and as a result, this continued manufacturing weakness and associated jobs loss could lead to increased social unrest.

* BEIJING (AP) — China’s manufacturing shrank for a third month in December as export demand fell, suggesting an economic slump is worsening despite government efforts to shield the country from global turmoil, according to data reported Sunday.

A key indicator, the Purchasing Managers Index, edged up from November’s all-time low but stood at 41.2, below the 50 level that shows activity is shrinking, the government-sanctioned China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said.

Manufacturing is about 40 percent of China’s economic output, and a drop in demand for its exports has triggered thousands of factory closures. That has prompted protests by laid-off workers, and communist leaders worry more job losses could fuel unrest.

The index of new export orders stood at 30.7, showing a severe contraction, according to the logistics group. Exports fell in November for the first time in seven years and analysts expect more weakness in December when monthly figures are reported this month.

In the two years since it joined the European Union, Romania has been among the bloc’s best-performing economies.

Work has stopped for a month at Mioveni’s Dacia factory

In 2008, this country of 22 million people registered 8.3% growth, the highest rate in the EU, fuelled by foreign investment and credit from Western-owned banks.

But that was last year.

The huge Dacia factory in Mioveni, in south-western Romania, employs 14,000 workers to assemble the Logan, one of the world’s cheapest cars and a symbol of the country’s industrial rebirth after the collapse of communism.

* STOCKHOLM: After shedding tens of thousands of jobs in recent months, Sweden should prepare for a new wave of layoffs in 2009, a survey of some of the country’s top business leaders showed on Saturday.

In a telephone survey conducted by the Regi polling agency last month of the chief executives of 100 companies listed on the Stockholm stock exchange, 39 per cent said their staffing needs would decline in 2009, the Dagens Industri business daily reported.

Another 38 per cent of those questioned meanwhile said they were not planning to hire any new staff this year.

* LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged Sunday to create 100,000 jobs through a public works program and said he would press banks to resume normal lending as Britain faces its sharpest economic downturn in decades.

Britain is starting 2009 with rising unemployment, plummeting house prices and a drying-up of lending by cash-strapped banks.

Brown’s government has pumped 37 billion pounds ($54 billion) into the country’s struggling banks, and the Bank of England has slashed interest rates to a 57-year low of 2 percent in a bid to stimulate the economy. The central bank is expected to cut rates further when its monetary policy committee meets on Thursday.

Mike: The word of the day is “redundancies,” which must make layoffs seem more palatable. I’ll have to do a piece on how companies wordsmith bad news to make it seem better or to make it so confusing that it’s unreadable. While this may be more a UK term, I have seen it in some US reports as well.

* Ignis Asset Management is to make between 30 and 35 redundancies within its Glasgow office in the new year.

The job cuts will impact on all business units, from sales to fund management. Ben Robinson, head of public relations at Ignis Asset Management, confirmed that the firm was currently undertaking a 30-day consultation period, which started on December 8.

Mike: Waterford is company that collapses due to poor sales, but what these companies seem to dismiss is that they collapse because they layoff the people that can afford to buy their products in favor of those who can’t by building product manufacturing in developing countries. So the story goes: layoff those who can afford to buy your product in favor of making the product cheaper in places that can’t afford to purchase your product. I guess that makes sense to the CEO types that destroy these companies.

* LONDON (AP) — Waterford Wedgwood PLC, the maker of classic china and crystal, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday after attempts to restructure the struggling business or find a buyer failed………………

Waterford acquired Wedgwood in 1986 to form the present company, listing on the stock exchange and expanding overseas in the 1990s before buying fellow Stoke-on-Trent ceramics maker Royal Doulton in 2005.

Much of the business has now shifted offshore, where it employs 5,800 people, including 1,500 people at a plant in Jakarta, Indonesia, which produces most of the company’s ceramics. The majority of its crystal production has been handed to Eastern European subcontractors.

The company employs a work force just a third of that size at 1,900 in Britain, including around 600 in Stoke-on-Trent and 800 in Waterford.

Waterford Mayor Jack Walsh said the closure of the crystal factory would deal a cultural and psychological blow to all of Ireland, noting that the crystal plant was one of the country’s top tourist attractions and the product “one of only a handful of iconic Irish brands.’

* NORWALK – The declining economy may prove to be a boon this year for the 2010 U.S. Census, which will be hiring hundreds of extra local workers over the next few months to help organize and canvass local neighborhoods as part of the national survey.

From recruiting assistants to office clerks and enumerators/listers, the local Norwalk Census office is hoping to recruit a pool of about 2,800 applicants to fill 560 full- and part-time positions that will last through about the summer of 2010.